Edge of Time's greatest flaw becomes more obvious with each minute that passes while watching it. Despite the film's claims to the contrary, this is not a cohesive anthology. Rather, the connections between the four short films are superficial at best—and that's when there are any at all. None of these films seems to take place in the same reality, nor do they contain the same characters (even in a metaphysical sense).

There is some shared symbolism between the short films—a white and red rose motif connects the second and third vignettes, while a distinctive robot connects the first and fourth. However, the meanings of these symbols and the purpose they play in the plot are completely different. Likewise, the only thing approaching a common theme between the short films is that “there are no winners in war, only losers.” It's painfully surface-level and does nothing to connect the short films meaningfully.

Despite this, an overarching narrative is forcefully imposed upon the film through a series of black screen narrations that appear in between each vignette, where a character from the first short film, The Underwater Girl, makes a few comments about the previous one and her continuing search for her soulmate. However, whileEdge of Time fails as a cohesive film, that doesn't mean the short films within aren't without promise—well, some of them anyway.

The first short film is pretentious fluff. It's about a girl who has her favorite, broken toy thrown away into the ocean as trash—only to jump in after it. She then proceeds to play with it and all the other discarded toys—now giant in size—under the sea until the spell ends and she must return to the surface. Sometime later, the girl is killed in a missile strike and her toy, The Underwater Girl, finds her remains—vowing to follow her soul across time using a magical MacGuffin.

The main problem with this first short film is that it's almost exclusively shot after shot of The Underwater Girl swimming or the two girls playing around. Generally, in filmmaking, every cut should have a point—establish a location, teach us about a character, further the plot, or explore a theme. However, 95% of its runtime is just self-indulgent whimsy with no actual point. It's simply boring.

The next short film, Morita Shuhei'sRoots, is the story of two star-crossed friends. Through a matching pair of red and white flowers, the two can talk to each other—despite never meeting in real life. Each serves as emotional support for the other, despite them unknowingly being on different sides of a long and bloody war.

While largely predictable, the vignette is a commentary on the cycle of war—how countries fight against each other generation after generation, often simply as a form of revenge for the previous war. There is also a clever twist within the film that manages to buck expectations somewhat, but ultimately does little to enhance the story or its message. The fantastic Navi-esque beastmen designs and feudal China-inspired battle scenes give the short film more visual impact.

The third short film is by far the best of the bunch. It is a cyberpunk story set in a world inspired by 1930s China. In an age of growing tension between normal humans and cyborgs, the story follows a filmmaker who long ago lost the love of his life and now uses his films as a means to escape reality. As he inadvertently stumbles into the political theater, he continues to stay detached from the looming war. Even as his long-lost love and his best friend are fighting for what they believe in, he's in his own world trying to regain something that ultimately never existed.

It's an exploration of humanity's self-centeredness and our ability to perceive the world in a way far different from reality. It also looks into the positives and negatives of human emotion and how we strive to find meaning in our lives—even if it's too late. Add to that a creatively realized retro-cyberpunk world and some simply astounding animation, and this short basically makes the overall film worth watching all on its own.

Edge of Time's final short film isShinichirō Watanabe'sA Girl Meets a Boy and a Robot. It follows the last girl on earth as she searches for any other survivors across a post-apocalyptic wasteland. As the title suggests, she eventually encounters a robot and a young man. Together, they attempt to survive in a ruined cityscape where robotic weapons from an age gone by continue a war that has long since lost any meaning.

While it works emotionally and has above-average action set pieces, it's also kind of a mess. Thematically, it's your standard anti-war message—a simple parable about the folly of war and the ultimate cost should things go too far. It is also built around a supernatural twist that both works and fails in equal measure. Or to put it another way, the more you think about it, the less sense it makes.

In the end, all of theEdge of Time's back three vignettes succeed as self-contained stories. In fact, each of them could easily be expanded into a feature film or even an entire anime series with little problem—especially the third. There's serious promise to what we see. The big failure of this film is the first short film, and trying to use it to force these four completely separate ones into being a single story, because they aren't. In the attempt, each of them becomes worse than they would be alone. And that's a real shame.